Around Canada

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – R. Murray Schafer's String Quartet No. 3 called for the St. Lawrence String Quartet to do some shouting at this year's Toronto Summer Music Festival, which seems fitting. The 2017 edition salutes Canadian music.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – The Bang on a Can All-Stars performed works by a dozen contemporary composers from Canada and the United States in an eclectic program that included John Oswald’s “plunderphonic” treatment of a Motown hit.

By David Gordon Duke

VANCOUVER – In a bold restructuring that replaces the conventional season, the first Vancouver Opera Festival, April 28-May 13, will boast three full-scale productions as well as solo performances and a variety of special features.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – In choosing Louis Riel, a rebel of the Canadian Métis people, as the subject of their 1967 opera, composer Harry Somers and libettist Mavor Moore hit on a dramatic topic that's so Canadian it bleeds maple syrup.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – Armed with a quasi-Wagnerian ethos, R. Murray Schafer's massive, twelve-part cycle called Patria dwarfs Wagner’s Ring. Now Soundstreams has fashioned Odditorium from four excerpts, with a part for singing head.

By David Gordon Duke

VANCOUVER - The ensemble Nordic Voices presented works by a trio of living Norwegian composers, including Lasse Thoresen (right), plus music by Goffredo Petrassi and György Ligeti. The performances were magisterial.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki has grown into a tall young man. He perches precariously on the edge of the bench and doesn’t quite know what to do with his knees. Fortunately, he knows exactly what to do with his hands.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – As part of its North American tour, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir sang solemn music of Arvo Pärt, Estonia's most famous composer, and Canadian music by composers of Estonian descent.

Colin Eatock

TORONTO - Except for an introductory work, the evening was given over to Canadian scores not receiving premieres. The five main pieces were premiered decades ago and written by composers who are no longer living.

DATE BOOK – The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has organized Canada Mosaic in celebration of the country’s 150th year. Commissions from the nation's many distinctive musical voices will ring out at orchestras coast to coast.

By Arthur Kaptainis

MONTREAL – Since 1892, the Ladies Morning Musical Club has sponsored concerts in Montreal, although men can now attend and recitals are later in the day. Soprano Karina Gauvin offered art song, folk and cabaret.

By David Gordon Duke

VANCOUVER - The American mezzo-soprano's extragavant project, In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music, includes contemporary media, a period-instrument orchestra, and stage movement, along with stellar vocalism.

By Bill Rankin

CALGARY - For their subtle concert at the University of Calgary, Toronto's Gryphon Trio and Canadian soprano Patricia O’Callaghan performed works from various traditions, including classical, pop, and cabaret.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova isn’t an early-music specialist, or a specialist in anything, really. But she was a first among equals with members of the Italian ensemble Accademia Bizantina.

By Arthur Kaptainis

MONTREAL – Reveling in a big, big way, the Montreal Symphony lauded the 50th anniversary of the city's Metro subway and explored new sounds in Jewish music in back-to-back concerts. Also unveiled – a monster octobass.

By Arthur Kaptainis

TORONTO – Sondra Radvanovsky shines in the daunting title role, with Russell Thomas as Pollione, in a misbegotten if harmless rendition of Bellini's bel canto drama to open the season at the Canadian Opera Company.

By David Gordon Duke

VANCOUVER – Bramwell Tovey began his next-to-last season as the Vancouver Symphony's most successful music director ever with a splashy proposition very much to his taste, including a roof-raising Le sacre du printemps.

By Arthur Kaptainis

MONTREAL - The Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal paid tribute to Christopher Jackson, its leader until his death last year, with a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers led by Jackson friend and colleague Julian Wachner.

By Colin Eatock

TORONTO – A "London Calling" theme has yielded chamber music programs for 2016 Toronto Summer Music, which reconstructs 18th- and 19th-century traditions for coronations and fashionable concert societies.

By Earl Arthur Love

IN MEMORIAM – Charles Pope Jr. of Ottawa, Ontario, an elegant writer who was a longtime correspondent for Opera Canada and frequent contributor to ConcertoNet.com, died suddenly on May 31, 2016.